Breast Implant Illness with Dr. Emily Gutierrez

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I welcome back Dr. Emily Gutierrez who is the chief scientific medical liaison and formulator for Neuro Nutrients and has over a decade of clinical experience managing patients in her busy practice with Neuronutrition Associates. In this episode, Emily shares her heartfelt story of breast implant illness and why she made the decision to explant. She's passionate about sharing her story because everyone deserves informed consent on how breast implants could affect the longevity of their well-being. 

Check out these other episodes with Emily:

• Episode 268: PANS/PANDAS, OCD, disordered eating in kids with pediatric neuro
• Episode 269: Autism & Neuro Nutrients

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Symptoms of BII
• What happens when the implants “expire”?
• Treatments & path forward for those experiencing BII
• What is a capsule?
• Benefits of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
• Type of cancer associated with BII
• Considerations with breast implants
• Considerations when explanting

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ABOUT GUEST:
Dr. Emily Gutierrez is the chief scientific medical liaison and formulator for Neuro Nutrients and has over a decade of clinical experience managing patients in her busy practice with Neuronutrition Associates, one of the first pediatric focused functional medicine practices opened in the United States. Dr. Gutierrez received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University with a focus in translational medicine as a doctor of nursing practice. She received her masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin and is board certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner. Dr. Gutierrez is also board certified through the Institute of Functional Medicine, board certified as a clinical nutritionist, and board certified as a primary care mental health specialist. Dr. Gutierrez is an active researcher, writer, and speaker, and her passion for formulating science based nutrient compounds that met the strictest standards of quality and efficacy continue to be her favorite tool in managing patients.

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.neuronutrients.com/
Instagram:@neuronutrients
Website: https://www.neuronutritionassociates.com/
Instagram: @neuronutritionassociates

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @lessstressedlife & @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Christa: Stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance have let a lot of us down. We're over medicated and underserved. At The Less Stressed Life, we're a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories.

[00:00:26] Christa: Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.

[00:00:43] Christa: all right. So today on the less stressed life, I have a return guest for a totally new topic, but the last time Dr. Emily Gutierrez was on the podcast, she really wowed us talking about autism and pandas. So if you didn't hear those episodes and if you're a clinician or if pandas is essentially in brief, when a child has get strep and then all of a sudden is not themselves anymore. Not very long later. So if that strikes you, make sure you go back and listen to that because she did such a beautiful job just being so generous with information. 

[00:01:16] Christa: So Dr. Emily is the chief scientific medical liaison and formulator for neuro nutrients and has over a decade of clinical experience managing patients in her busy practice with neuro nutrition associates. 

[00:01:28] Christa: One of the first pediatric focused functional medicine practices opened in the U S she received her doctorate from John Hopkins university with a focus on translational medicine as a doctor of nursing practice.

[00:01:38] Christa: She received her master's degree from the university of Texas at Austin and is board certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner. She's also board certified through the Institute of Functional Medicine, a board certified as a clinical nutritionist, and board certified as a primary care mental health specialist.

[00:01:54] Christa: When she has time, she's an active researcher, writer and speaker and her passion for formulating science based nutrient compounds that meet strict standards of quality and efficacy continues to be her favorite tool in managing patients, which I feel like that was born out of pandemic time. Wasn't it? Is that when you kind of started? 

[00:02:10] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Absolutely. 

[00:02:11] Christa: I need something for this brain. I need something to do, so I'm going to just create a supplement line. I have some very close friends that have supplement lines and so we meet usually once a month and they're always highlighting the challenges and I'm like, you guys don't make me want to have a supplement line at all.

[00:02:27] Christa: So anyway, I appreciate what you guys do and obviously it's a wild West and so if you can care about integrity and quality, that's good. And it's always nice if you can develop the supplement you wanted for your clients. When no one makes it. And so I'm sure that was needed, 

[00:02:41] Christa: but today for fun, Dr. Emily is going to get a little, we're talking about something a little different, still very medical, but still such a needed topic today. We're talking about breast implant illness. And I will say that not very long ago, right before you reached out to me to talk about this topic. I had a client say, she's like, I'm a little embarrassed to talk about this, but I'm thinking about having my implants taken out because it's just not really, it doesn't really.

[00:03:07] Christa: You know, the same kind of story, it's like, I really felt like I needed these at one point and I don't really feel like I need them anymore. And I'm concerned about some of the side effects. So we're going to talk about what that can look like, because it's just 1 of those many topics that needs a little more publicity.

[00:03:22] Christa: So people know what their options are and what some of the pros and cons are, because it probably feels a little bit like a lonely path, if you feel like you're dealing with breast implant illness. So thanks for coming on today to talk about this. 

[00:03:36] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Absolutely. And thank you for having me. I've been asked a couple of times to talk about my experience, my personal experience, and I just, I feel like we've had great conversations.

[00:03:47] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I really like your style and your flow, and I trust that you and I can get this message out together in a really clear and meaningful way. So I'm a little nervous. I'm getting vulnerable, vulnerable and personal, which I don't typically, speak publicly on my own health or things that are going on with me personally.

[00:04:08] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: But I feel really passionate about this because I want women to have informed consent. And I think that I wasn't given informed consent and many women that are trying to make this decision on what to do don't really have informed consent. And what that means to me is that you have all the information to make the decision between the pros and the cons on what you want to do for yourself.

[00:04:31] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So conversation. 

[00:04:34] Christa: Yeah. That was actually going to be one of my questions later because we're going to talk about breast implant illness and these implants have an expiration date. And I was just kind of curious if that was brought up at the beginning, but let's start at the beginning. Right. Let's start at the beginning.

[00:04:46] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Okay. 

[00:04:46] Christa: Let's start about what happened for you postpartum that led you to breast implants, and then what happened after you had them? 

[00:04:57] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, I don't regret for one second having my child. William is 20 now, one of the best accomplishments of my life for sure. But it was also the hardest thing in my life. I ever did was have a baby because I had severe postpartum depression.

[00:05:13] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: In fact, I had postpartum psychosis for part of it and there's just this radical change. Just have this baby and it's just the rainbows and butterflies and flowers and your life is supposed to be amazing and meaningful because now you've extended your family. And it was everything but that for me had severe anxiety, severe depression.

[00:05:35] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I was afraid to be around my baby for a long time. And part of me getting well was learning how to, really take care of myself. And, I learned that exercise was amazing for your brain during that time. So I went from having gained three times the amount of weight you're supposed to when you're pregnant to now having this kind of.

[00:05:58] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Like body that I didn't recognize. And I had this crisis of like, who am I? What do I look like? Who am I as a mother? Who am I as like a woman? And my breasts were not what they were pre having a baby. 

[00:06:12] Christa: The old tube sock phenomenon. 

[00:06:14] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. You got it. 

[00:06:16] Christa: This is also a huge topic, right? Before we even get into breastplant stuff like, this is, we often talk about the fourth try, was that what we would call it? The fourth trimester or the, I think that's what we kind of call it. It's like the postpartum woman is not really cared for. Right. And actually I want to, I know we're going to get into breast implants. I want to ask you now. So it's more on topic. Do you have thoughts about your postpartum depression in retrospect? Because at that point, I'm guessing. You were very different career wise. You were a very different place in your life 20 years ago. So what do you think about it? 

[00:06:50] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, yeah. I was extremely estrogen dominant. I think that's probably one of the biggest features of my depression And I didn't really understand much about methylation or glucuronidation or estrogen pathways didn't really understand that not Keeping my weight low when I was pregnant and like what that would mean for me afterwards, especially with my estrogen dominance.

[00:07:16] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So I think it was a huge shift of having so much estrogen. So then it bottoming out and just the rebalance of thyroid and estrogen and all of the things, and I had very, very poor support, so I didn't know about vitamins like I know about vitamins, now I just didn't have what it really took and I, and really, honestly, I think everyone should encapsulate their placenta, even though that might sound a little strange, 

[00:07:44] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: but if you encapsulate your placenta, which means basically dry out your placenta, you put it into capsules and then you take it over time and you take more and then a little less and a little less until it's done, then you don't have this crazy shift from so much hormone to no hormone. People with, PMS can know when your estrogen gets high before it falls.

[00:08:07] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: When you menstruate, if you get irritable and anxious around that time, uh, you're more vulnerable for postpartum depression for sure. And I kind of had a traumatic birth with my son, there was a time where I thought, am I going to. live through this delivery or is he or we both gonna die and so they also know when you have really a traumatic birth that you're more likely to have postpartum depression and then he just came out he had tracheal malaysia he didn't have a good suck swallow he had a big injury on his head because they had to suck him out you know get the suction to get him out he was very irritable he had reflux so terribly that he had you know all the milk you Coming out of his nose and mouth at the same time, just very, very unhappy infant.

[00:08:50] Christa: What mama would be anxious about all of this? 

[00:08:53] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, , it was hard. It was super, super hard. During this period, I'm just trying to regather myself And figure out who I am and I really just had a crisis of like, who am I in this space going forward? And at that time breast implants seemed like a really good idea.

[00:09:10] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So I got them. 

[00:09:13] Christa: And what happened? 

[00:09:15] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I loved them. And I was happy to have them. And I knew they had an expiration date, but you know when you're in that space you're like, Ugh, 10 years is... That's a long way away. I'll just deal with that then, you know? So fast forward, I'm living in Austin. I know a lot more about, medicine, functional medicine, nutrition really changed my lifestyle, really changed, who I was, the breast implants were becoming disingenuous to who I felt like I was as a person.

[00:09:43] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And then I heard the musings, , some people can get sick from these diseases. Having a formed body in your body, really that great for your immune system. So by the time the expiration was up, I went to a surgeon here in Austin and I said, I've been hearing that people can get sick from their breast implants.

[00:09:59] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I really just want to get them out. And at that time, he looked at me and he said, Emily, you're too young. And if we take them out, you're going to look deformed. We should just replace them. And then you can deal with it and another 10 years. So I went against my gut and I'm like, okay, I'll just replace them.

[00:10:18] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: That's what I'll do. So I went under the knife again, and, within six months, I was having heart palpitations, I was having premature ventricular contractions and atrial contractions that were premature as well. And, I didn't have any association that was with my breast implants.

[00:10:38] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I just thought, Oh, I'm just too stressed. I have too much on my plate. I'm drinking too much caffeine. Like there's all these reasons that maybe it's happening. I mean, but it worried me so much. I went more halter monitor, went to the cardiologist, had an evaluation from it.

 

[00:10:53] Christa: Heart complications does not go over well in your brain. 

[00:11:01] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, no. No, no. And I don't know about you. But in this space of being very focused on other people's health. 

[00:11:10] Christa: Oh yeah. 

[00:11:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: When it's your own health, things can feel amplified. So when you feel your heart going out a rhythm that can also create anxiety, which is just perpetuates the problem of rhythm disturbance right. 

[00:11:24] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So, kind of put it to bed, had a beta blocker to take it if I needed to, and then just ignored it. And then things started to come up a little bit, like, I'm a little fatigued. I'm having a little brain fog. Oh, and then I started to get this chronic rash between my breasts.

[00:11:41] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I'm like, 

[00:11:42] Christa: usually the last straw for people, right? Before that you were like, I'm just overworked and tired and getting old. 

[00:11:48] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. Just overworked, tired, getting old. 

[00:11:50] Christa: But this rash between my breasts, this is abnormal for like, they don't say I'm going to get that when I get older and stressed, right?

[00:11:58] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Exactly. 

[00:11:59] Christa: That's the straw. 

[00:12:00] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And it just, it was this perpetual rash. It looked like, not even eczema, but feeling like these little pustules that would come up and like little zits on those, a little acne between them. So I was having these things that were vague and I'm like, well, I don't really know if I have breast implant on this, but I keep hearing about it and I really want these out.

[00:12:20] Christa: Cause you were how many years into the second implants at this point, when this was coming to a head, when the rash happened, how far into the second implants were you ?

[00:12:29] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: About two years, about two years into it. 

[00:12:33] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So I got my my first set when I was 26, and then six years ago I got them replaced.

[00:12:40] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And, a year after that I started having heart issues. And then a couple of years after that I started having this chronic rash that would never go away. And I'll Oh, everything, you know, topical steroids, I tried some ozonated ointment, everything I would do, it would temporarily abate and then it would come back.

[00:13:00] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It would just come right back as soon as I quit putting something on me, it would come right back. 

[00:13:04] Christa: Cause it was internal or external, right? 

[00:13:06] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:13:08] Christa: It is that funny you brought up. I went against my gut, man. I mean, I really have to, and sometimes it's really good.

[00:13:14] Christa: These things where we go against our gut and we have essentially a trauma because this is a trauma for you, right? Obviously we have, we all have these things, like maybe I make an investment somewhere. It doesn't work. I'm just speaking from a personal experience. Maybe you make an investment. It doesn't work out.

[00:13:27] Christa: And then around that thing, if you don't really address that, right.

[00:13:30] Christa: If you don't address like what went wrong there, Oh, I went against my gut feeling. If you don't really process through that, you start to kind of like live out. I don't know if I'm saying this eloquently. But it actually kind of taints everything else in your life a little bit, if you don't sort of address those comments.

[00:13:45] Christa: So I can hear you say like, Oh, I went against my gut and I had listened to this other guy, for what was best for my body instead of myself, 

[00:13:52] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: right. 

[00:13:53] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I didn't want to look deformed like deformed. I was like, well, gosh, I'm going to look deformed. This is really bad. 

[00:13:59] Christa: I actually, thanks for that word.

[00:14:01] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. That was exactly what he told me. So we talked about the different options at that time, like fat transfer and other things that you can do that were non implant. And he's like, Oh, that didn't work. nobody has a good aesthetic from that. Really. The only thing that you can do is replace them.

[00:14:19] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I don't think he was interested really in helping me do anything else. So when I came. So the decision, it's time. It's time to really just move forward and get these things out of my body. 

[00:14:31] Christa: On your heart four years after it, I was like feeling, 

[00:14:34] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 

[00:14:35] Christa: , you were like, I tried all the other things for my skin. Did you think at that time, like, this might be part of it. Or you're like, you know, I just wanted to get rid of these anyway, a little bit of both maybe. 

[00:14:43] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: A little bit of both. And then I think that, the universe brought me two very important women, and they both were close friends of mine that had x plants, and, they shared their story with me, like, I didn't even know the amount of inflammation I was carrying around until I got them out, and one person was extremely proud of her aesthetic about the way that she looked.

[00:15:02] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: She just felt really great. The other one, had chronic mold issues. Finally, she got to resolve, those was feeling better and better. I mean, I was hearing the stories of I got him out. I felt better. I'm better for it. So it was on my heart. it is that like, I knew it was convenient for me to replace them rather than to go through the work.

[00:15:24] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It was going to take to get them out at that time, but I knew as they became more disingenuous to like my body and just being in this space of like, I want to be, I want to have good nutrition and I want to put clean things on my body. And I want to live as naturally as possible. I was ready for it.

[00:15:42] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So I got some recommendations and I went to see, I saw three people before I found my surgeon. 

[00:15:49] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: the first person does X plants and a lot of breast reconstruction for cancer. And she was like, she gave me the best price. And she said, Emily, I'll take them out. And I don't think you need to do anything else.

[00:16:03] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: You just kind of figure out how you feel about it. And six months after that, if you don't like it, we can go in and try to do something with the aesthetic. But this is the key she said, but I won't take out your capsule unless it looks sick. So what a capsule is, when you get the breast implants in your body, everybody creates a capsule around it.

[00:16:21] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It's your way, your immune system is trying to tie it off. And when it comes to breast implant illness, I think it's really important that you take the capsule out, no matter what it looks like, because it's the amount of immune reactivity around that foreign body. 

[00:16:35] Christa: Yeah. What's it actually made out of?

[00:16:36] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: My gosh. 

[00:16:37] Christa: Or like, can you describe it in some way? Like how can we visualize, cause we can imagine maybe an implant being kind of a bag of silicone, right? And if there's a capsule around that. 

[00:16:49] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It's a really good question. What is it actually made up?

[00:16:52] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It looks like part of a placenta around your implant. I wish I had the words to describe what is in the capsule, but it's like a vascular, immune complex around the actual implant itself. 

[00:17:06] Christa: It's a bit invasive to remove. 

[00:17:09] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. 

[00:17:10] Christa: It's almost like they take part of your body and start to help create it. Is that what you're saying? 

[00:17:14] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah, well, there's a technique called an in block encapsulectomy, where surgeons have learned how to go in and remove the entire capsule around the implant. And eventually, I found my surgeon because he specializes in explant, and he specializes in taking out... The capsule with the implant.

[00:17:35] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So the second person I went to see was like, Oh, we can do a great aesthetic. I can fat transfer. It works really well. You're going to love the way you look, but I won't take out your capsule unless you look sick. And so. I have a really good friend that's a functional medicine doctor here in town, and she said, Emily, you have to go see Rob Whitfield.

[00:17:55] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I'm like, Oh my gosh, who is that? She said, well, he's like a functional medicine plastic surgeon. If you can believe that there's an actual thing. Just go and talk to him about, you know, Well, what he would suggest for you. 

[00:18:09] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So when I went to talk to him, like he started talking about glucuronidation and detox and glutathione.

[00:18:17] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I'm like, Oh, wow. We kind of speak the same language. I think this is my guy. Plus when he takes out the capsule, he sends it and he tests everybody for cancer. So there is a cancer associated with having breast implants. It's called anaplastic large cell lymphoma. And it's usually associated with textured breast implants.

[00:18:38] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I had smooth ones. So my risk was less, but he sends it off for that. And he also sends off all of the capsules for testing PCR testing to see what was actually in your capsule. So I liked that. I'm like, Ooh, more testing to know if there's, one, I have a cancer risk and two, what else could have been going on to make my capsule six.

[00:19:01] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I chose him and I underwent the explant surgery with him and he took my breast implants out and then he also lifted them up and he transferred fat to improve the aesthetic of the surgery and I'm so glad. Just curious. 

[00:19:20] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: A little bit everywhere. And I'm telling you, that was the most painful thing I've ever gone through.

[00:19:25] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: A little bit in your abdomen, a little bit on your faint planks, and it is liposuction. It's liposuction. So that's where they get the fat. And Dr. Rob will say fat is the best filler. And I guess it is, 

[00:19:38] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: the risk with fat transfer is it might die. you might not keep all of it. So I did an extra step after explant that I think was really helpful.

[00:19:47] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I got into my hyperbaric chamber for 40 hours right after surgery. Not 40 hours, like I got in, I didn't get out for 40 hours, but Every day I would spend a couple hours in the hyperbaric chamber, which is good too, because the more breast surgeries that you have, the more you mess around with your nipples, the more risk of nipple necrosis you have.

[00:20:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So they might not actually reattach and have the blood flow. So that was a really important thing that I was happy. I had a tool to get into my um, right after surgery. 

[00:20:22] Christa: I also like how many hours you told us you use that And actually, let's do this question. Did you see changes healing?

[00:20:30] Christa: Like, what do you think you saw from using the HBOT potentially? And this is my favorite part, I know you spent 40 hours in there, but how long to see, Did it, do you think it sped your, I mean, this is the third surgery you've had. It's probably the more, maybe more intense one. I just, by the way, I spent a moment Googling, breast implant capsules.

[00:20:50] Christa: And now I know what you're talking about because it looks like I have seen these on Instagram and they cover the picture. They're like, this photo is graphic. Cause implant just looks like a. What you think it looks like, it looks like a flat ball of liquid. You know, it's like a silicone, whatever.

[00:21:05] Christa: Most people have maybe seen this, but the capsule is like part of your body. It's like skin and tissue and whatever. And it's like, Oh, what is that? You know, that's what it looks like. This is essentially, so they must have created it somehow. I don't understand, but they must create it somehow around that right. To try to protect, you know, it's like use something natural in the body to protect this silicone thing. I'm just trying to, I have to talk about it. I don't understand what you're talking about. So anyway, back to HBOT. 

[00:21:36] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, what happens over time with that capsule to that I think is important to know is it, it can start to develop something called capsule or contracture where it hardens and it hardens so much.

[00:21:48] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It starts to basically squeeze the implant and that's what we're happening to mine. That's probably one of the biggest thing is I didn't tell you that I was like, my breasts are starting to feel like rocks. Before I got them out, I'm like, why are they so they're not soft and supple. They're just like hard rocks.

[00:22:05] Christa: It feels like calcification. 

[00:22:07] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, and a hundred percent is 

[00:22:09] Christa: that what it is? 

[00:22:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yes, one of them was so calcified that it ruptured my implant and it was leaking silicone when he took it out. So I had a ruptured implant with silicone the capsules, when they sent them off for PCR, I had staph in them and I had another bacteria called Cutibacterium acnus in them.

[00:22:30] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And guess what happened one week after I got them out? 

[00:22:34] Christa: Tell us. 

[00:22:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: 100% that rash that I had had for years was gone 100% with no intervention whatsoever. Other than of course, my major surgery to get them out. But it completely, and the cutie bacterium acnus is probably what the rash was about. So they were covered in bacteria, and they were ruptured, and they were calcified.

[00:22:59] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Like I had no business having them in my body anymore. 

[00:23:03] Christa: After, if one has been leaking, I feel like this might happen a lot. I feel like I know someone else who had a ruptured one, which obviously, because I know one person probably happens a lot, but

[00:23:13] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: the person is high. 

[00:23:14] Christa: Yeah. So, if someone has a implant leaking, that should become obvious at some point in theory, shouldn't it?

[00:23:23] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, it depends on which type of implant you have. So if you have a saline and you have a leak, you can just drain out the saline, right? So you'll have a difference of one breast size to the other. But if you have silicone, they're like gummy bears. It can be open spilling out, but it still isn't gonna really deplete it, the way that, say, a saline would.

[00:23:45] Christa: Well, now you got, now I got more questions. So did they talk to you about the difference between silicone and saline? And do they like poo poo saline? Because saline feels like it could have been more safe. 

[00:23:56] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Doesn't it feel like it could be more safe? Yes, I think that, that originally it was, well, if they ruptured, then you're going to have to go back in do it.

[00:24:05] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Whereas your silicone implant can have a rupture and you're not going to have the aesthetic be so wildly different. 

[00:24:14] Christa: Sounds bad, actually. 

[00:24:16] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah, 

[00:24:17] Christa: so I have another question about this, which is I feel like the big 1. this is why people maybe don't do it because I don't remember who I was talking to about this.

[00:24:24] Christa: But she said, I just don't really want to spend the money on it. So I'm not going to do it. Can you talk about the costs associated with X plant versus replacement? Or like, can you just ballpark us? Because I'm sure it's like, all over the place. But I mean, 

[00:24:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh yeah, it is all over the place and I think it depends on the extras that you get with it, right?

[00:24:44] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So the first, surgeon was like, I'm just going to take them out. We'll just make a little slip, take them out. No big deal. She was going to charge me 10, 000 for it. The second surgeon that wanted, to do a lift and fat transfer, it was twice that. And fortunately cuz he's really good at what he does, Dr. Rob was the most expensive for sure. 

[00:25:06] Christa: Yeah. He did a lot of other stuff. 

[00:25:09] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I did. I mean, he used exosomes and the, or so he put him on the scars afterwards. He did a lot of testing on them. Yeah, He definitely went the extra mile on all of my care. He has a program like before you can see a nutritionist and do all the things, get ready for it.

[00:25:27] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And after I didn't personally need to do that just based on what I do. But you're probably going to spend around 20, 000. If you get a really good explant and maybe a little bit more, 

[00:25:40] Christa: to put them in. 

[00:25:42] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah, yeah, four to six. I mean, I think four is probably on the lower end. It's probably more like six to 10.

[00:25:50] Christa: Right. But I'm thinking my brain is like thinking earlier 2000s numbers and I just haven't updated my brain. So I can see where this doesn't feel as accessible, right? Like it's part of the problem is like no one can decide they want to take their implants out and just go do it. They have to find a partner that they trust to do it because probably maybe, probably one of the reasons they wanted them out in the first place is because they're having a bit of a mismatch from what the normal surgeon would think right. Obviously, as you experienced, 

[00:26:21] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: and I think it's becoming, as more people are talking about it and talking about their experiences with it. At least people are starting to hold the space for maybe this isn't the best decision for us to improve the aesthetic of our breasts as women. I want to save space and honor those that have had breast surgery that need reconstruction because of cancer.

[00:26:44] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: don't think there's a perfect solution for them because if you're extremely thin. Where are you going to get fat for fat transfer? And if you have to have a mastectomy or a lumpectomy, I mean, that's a hard decision to know, you know, how are we going to reconstruct these in a way that you feel like is good about your body.

[00:27:02] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: There's a lot more into it. I think the message that I really want women to hear is if you're just doing it to improve the way you look and that's your bottom line, you got to think about the risk associated with it. Cost is a huge risk. Because, the cost today in 10 years is going to be a whole lot more when you're going in there anesthesia, you're finding a surgeon, and there's just a cost to your immune system in your total body inflammation, about two weeks. 

[00:27:30] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, about two weeks after surgery. I haven't had one PVC. I haven't had one heart rhythm disturbance at all. Two days ago, I went back to see my cardiologist and he did an EKG and we talked about my breast implants and he's like, Emily, it was infection and inflammation.

[00:27:48] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It's amazing. I've heard of a few other, my patients that have had this done and all of the rhythm disturbances go away. So what was the cost to my heart? To have that infection and autoimmune inflammation right next to it, it was stressing my heart out. 

[00:28:03] Christa: Yeah. 

[00:28:03] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: That alone, other than that weird rush, and I'm so glad it's gone completely, I'm not willing to do things that I know are stressing my heart out purposefully, and it, you 

[00:28:14] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: know.

[00:28:14] Christa: Had you done some blood work around inflammatory markers before your explant and saw things looking off? 

[00:28:20] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yep. My height, my CRP, my C reactive protein was starting to go higher and higher. So yes, yes, I did. 

[00:28:29] Christa: It was, you were feeling it a little bit. Okay. So I got us all distracted from the HBOT conversation.

[00:28:35] Christa: So I'm going to take us back over there and talk to us about. Kind of what , your interpretation of how HBOT helped you, but I know you spent 40 hours in it, but let's talk about the earlier stages. When do you think, and this is just your best guess, like what were some of the results you saw earlier?

[00:28:50] Christa: Because what I like to do is because we're logical humans and we'd like to think about things in proof. It's like, please tell us some proof about like how long it takes to really see a change from HBOT essentially post surgical intervention. Or whatever. 

[00:29:02] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, I'm a huge, huge advocate of each, but we actually dispense them to patients from a company called summit to see, I think oxy health, you've probably seen those at conferences, the oxy health providers, , they're about twice as expensive, those chambers, summit to see is about half and you can get a pretty good chamber in your home for about 7, 000.

[00:29:25] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Which sounds like a lot of money and it is a huge investment. However, you can use it over your lifetime because each spot is basically oxygen under pressure. And when you put yourself under pressure and you oxygenate your tissues better, you have more exponential healing. And in the space of autism, brain injury, near drowning, there's so many different things is when you put your body under pressure and put more oxygen into it. You oxygenate the periphery, right? 

[00:29:59] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So you're oxygenating your blood. You're oxygenating your fingertips. helps with cerebral flow of oxygen. And it's so healing for so many things. So You know, it was not a question to me if we could get into HPOC right after surgery and Dr. Rob said, you know, it's really interesting, Emily, because there hasn't been a lot of studies using hyperbaric right after surgery.

[00:30:25] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: But he's all in. He has an H bot his clinic. But the day after I got into it, the day after, and I took pain meds for probably two or three days. So I didn't want to like fall asleep in there. I had my husband helped me in and out of it and to monitor it, but I was in it immediately.

[00:30:42] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And when did I see an effect? I mean, my brain, I didn't even know I had brain fog. literally did not know I had it. 

[00:30:50] Christa: Yeah. You previously had it, right? 

[00:30:53] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. About 10 hours into each, but I'm like, wow, I am thinking super clearly getting into the office, doing all my stuff. It's just like, I don't know. It's like the Hayes kind of lifted.

[00:31:06] Christa: What year is this? 

[00:31:09] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I did this six months ago. 

[00:31:10] Christa: Oh, okay. Got it. I was going to say, well, look at what you're going to be able to do now. I was like, maybe you did this a couple of years ago, right? Before you started your company. Like, whoa, things are going to get real unhinged here because your brain is working at full capacity.

[00:31:22] Christa: Look what she could do at half capacity. Look, wait to see what she can do at full capacity. Just another little HBOT rabbit hole. So your practice has an HBOT and you work with neuro stuff. 

[00:31:35] Christa: What are the indications that you're using HBOT for in your practice, which is a bit of a tangent from our topic today.

[00:31:41] Christa: I love sauna, but I feel like HBOT is like the next awesome thing that helps a ton. 

[00:31:46] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, it is. It is the next awesome thing I think that can help a ton, a hundred percent. And here's the caveat on sauna. Think about sitting in a sauna and heating up your breast implants.

[00:32:00] Christa: Oh yeah. No. 

[00:32:01] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: People with breast implants shouldn't be in the sauna. And I was in the sauna a lot, a lot before that. 

[00:32:08] Christa: I never thought about that. 

[00:32:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I didn't either until we talked about it with Dr. Rob and he's like, don't do that, Emily. No, 

[00:32:19] Christa: I mean, duh, but I don't even think, it's like, and also I don't actually have implants.

[00:32:24] Christa: And so sometimes if you don't have an experience, you forget the reason I can speak to skin issues with such empathy is because I know what people are going through. Cause I've been there, so it's just different. It's like. We learn the most through experience, right? And so now I will never forget.

[00:32:38] Christa: Now I'll go put on my intake forms. Do you have breast plants? If so, please ignore any SADA recommendations. Right? So I don't actually forget to tell someone something important like that. Right? Back to HBOT in your practice. 

[00:32:50] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yes. 

[00:32:51] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, autism is probably one of the biggest indications for it.

[00:32:55] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: We know that 40 is a minimum amount of hours, but 60 you can start to see improvements in development. And I think anybody that has any, nitric oxide, issues. Maybe they have a gene where they're not making nitric oxide. Maybe they have a mobility issue. It can really help with almost anything neuro, including seizures, including cerebral palsy, including those with brain injury from trauma.

[00:33:25] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So we know for sure in science, the sooner you get somebody in the hyperbaric chamber after they have a near drowning episode, you can save their brain. You can save them from dying. If there goes straight into each spot. We also know that if you go straight Nate sweat after a traumatic brain injury or concussion that those neurons that are stunned that are going to die.

[00:33:47] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: If we feed them more oxygen, you won't have the. Sequelae and the adverse kind of death of those neurons because you've oxygenated them. 

[00:33:57] Christa: I know someone that just had a stroke and wasn't found for a while. So that would be a good use for someone like 100%. 

[00:34:05] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: 100%. 100%. We've always had, if you have a trauma level one hospital, you're going to have an HBOT in that hospital.

[00:34:13] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And it's going to be, and that's the hard shell chambers where you can go under 1. 4 atmospheres of pressure, where your fire risk increases. And there's a little bit more, nuance to the safety of it, the lower you go, but it's in every hospital because. We know it will heal your wounds. So people with decubitus ulcers or bed sores or things, you put them in the hyperbaric and it literally will heal their wounds.

[00:34:42] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I had a friend that accidentally cut off his finger and they sewed it back on and it was necrotic. It wasn't healing. It wasn't healing. After three hours of HBOT, he was getting all of his sensation back in his finger. It's pretty remarkable. Mild hyperbaric, doesn't have the fire risk. Professional athletes will take them on the road with them as they're going to game. So it's post workout recovery. You can get into the H bot. You can do concentrated air. So if you do a concentrated air, basically it takes the air in the room, concentrates it to 94% oxygen, and you can put it on being nasal cannula and you get more oxygen under pressure.

[00:35:24] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: But that doesn't have the fire risk like doing pure oxygen would. So mild is a soft chamber that only goes up to 1. 4 atmospheres of pressure. And most the prescription for it is 40 to 60 hours for most things, but you can use it off and on throughout your lifetime for a variety of things. 

[00:35:46] Christa: I had a. On that, they were going to amputate.

[00:35:49] Christa: She was 100 when she died last year, I think. So, they were going to amputate her like she had a sore and it got infected. So they're going to amputate her leg. I mean, that's a very minimized version of it, they did, essentially what they would put in a field and military, right?

[00:36:05] Christa: Oxygen. Oxygen bag, you know, and she had a nurse, she hired a nurse to come in. And so it was actually a study. Her doctor just wanted to amputate it. Her son went to university. They were in California. So I found someone who would do this study essentially, or like help them with it. And so they did that.

[00:36:19] Christa: But for me, curious about this. And we can talk about it more later. I'm just curious about it because it doesn't feel Extremely accessible to everyone, but you're talking about it very accessibly like there are, and I'm familiar with, there are some things that you can send home with people, but it sounds like you're doing the thing.

[00:36:34] Christa: More about that a little bit later. 

[00:36:35] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And what I love about, well, and families too, that, invest in a chamber. A lot of times, once they're done doing those 46 hours, they'll pass it on and sell it to a friend or give it to a friend. And, you can break it down and move it. It's not like the hard chambers once you get them done.

[00:36:52] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And if you do all this construction and all this ventilation, soft chambers are a lot different and they are way more dr. Harsh is probably one of the leading physicians that's done a lot of work around HBOT and they've shown based on scans of the brain pre and post that, mild hyperbaric can be just as effective as going lower and needing to go to a place that does hard shell chambers.

[00:37:18] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So it can be really effective and it can be really accessible. And most there's lots of chiropractors that have one. There's lots of alternative healthcare providers that have them plus

[00:37:29] Christa: Oh, I already mentally drew a line in this room and was like, how could I have also have that in this space? Just because we don't have that here. 

[00:37:39] Christa: Okay. So you went to Dr. Whitfield, you had the X plant. He sent out the capsule, found the infections. No intervention, clear the rash, 10 hours later in HBOT, you're like, Oh my gosh, my brain works. Did you do any other follow up with Dr. Whitfield? 

[00:37:54] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah, he followed me pretty closely.

[00:37:56] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: We had three or four visits after that, just to make sure everything looked good, to check in. He's actually doing some studies now looking at EEG's pre and post explant showing, so quantifying what the actual brain fog looks like via EEG, which I think is really interesting. So I felt extremely supported and I did my own stuff, HBOT, glutathione, just lots of breasts.

[00:38:23] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: But really when my, when all my heart rhythm stuff went away, I was like, man, this is wow. This is just, wow. I just thought this was going to be me for the rest of my life. So really, really positive thing. Positive, positive experience. for me 

[00:38:40] Christa: So you mentioned one of your friends had mold in her implant, so my point in saying that is that mold can cause almost any symptom.

[00:38:46] Christa: It's really annoying including brain fog, including rashes, including whatever, including maybe some heart rhythm stuff, honestly, because it kind of ruins absolutely every system. Are there any other, breast implant illness symptoms that are really common that you think we should give lip service to if people are trying to figure out, cause I would imagine it would, yeah. It's like an immune response, so it can throw off absolutely anything. 

[00:39:09] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And that's a great point because I think that if you've done the work to balance your gut, you're not eating inflammatory foods. You're taking, the right vitamins.

[00:39:17] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: You're really working hard on all of these other things, environmental toxicity, glyphosate, you name it. Yeah, you're still having some type of chronic autoimmune activation. That's when I think you really need to just be honest with yourself. If you have implants, like, could this be coming from my implants?

[00:39:39] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Is this because I have foreign bodies in my chest that my immune system is feeling stress from? So it's a little different for everyone. It's vague. And I think the criticism in the industry, well, one, it's a moneymaker to put implants in to, it's not fully accepted by all surgeons that breast implants can actually cause harm.

[00:40:02] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: But I think it's important to know and to hear people's story that I did this and so many different things improved and it's heterogeneous what the symptoms are you're going to hear about. Chronic rashes. You're going to hear about brain fog. You're going to hear about autoimmune activation inflammation where you can't find it from or don't understand where the source of it is, but it's a little different for everyone.

[00:40:27] Christa: I think there's like two camps of women, what do you want to say? And you did a good job, speaking to those that may need to do some reconstruction and that there isn't a great option. So anything you want to say to a woman who's considering breast implants in retrospect, and then anything you want to say to a woman who is considering explanting her implants?

[00:40:50] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Okay. The one that's considering it. You got to be prepared for it may or may not cause another chronic autoimmune activation in your body. That is true. It may or may not increase your risk for cancer. That is true. And also you're going to have to replace them at some point and what the cost is today will be different in 10 years.

[00:41:18] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So there's risks to doing that. You're going to have to go under anesthesia again. you're going to have to address it at some point. You just don't get them put in and forget about them for the rest of your life. It is something that you have to manage. So if you're willing to then say, yes, I want to have it done.

[00:41:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I also would say, well, you know, lifting them up. And putting fat into them, if you have fat in other places in your body to do it actually can be a really nice aesthetic. I'm pretty happy with my results. I'm pretty happy with my aesthetic and I thought it was going to look deformed because that's what I was told.

[00:41:57] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So the fact that I actually like the way I look and I don't feel deformed and my husband's still chasing me around the kitchen, it's awesome. So the aesthetic can be there. It doesn't have to be done with an implant. And I think we're better and better at doing it. 

[00:42:12] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And for those that are thinking about getting it out, if you have anything chronic that's health related going on and you haven't been able to really solve it by doing other things, you never know what you're going to benefit or how your body's going to benefit if you get them out.

[00:42:30] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I really think it's worth the risk of trying. So. I feel lighter. My inflammation feels better. I don't regret it at all. And you know, Krista, I haven't had one friend or one colleague or one person that I've ever known that's gone about that has regretted it. Not one. So I don't know. 

[00:42:52] Christa: How was your husband throughout the journey?

[00:42:54] Christa: Or maybe he had an opinion. Just curious because sometimes they're kind of. 

[00:42:59] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, of course. I mean, I've been married almost 25 years and, he's like, Emily, I support whatever you need to do. I support whatever you need to do. And. I mean, he's just been super supportive, but it's everybody's question.

[00:43:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Like, Oh, how'd your husband feel about that? Well, he knows that if I'm not totally at peace with how I'm treating my health, I'm not going to be at peace period just because that's who I am. And, He's like, I'm going to love you no matter what. And he's pretty darn pleased with the way I look as well.

[00:43:28] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So we won, we won doing this, you know? 

[00:43:32] Christa: I feel that when I scheduled this interview, I should do a follow up on what happens if you don't wear a bra. Cause I'm on this journey of no bras and like last week I wore a bra and my boobs were so saggy and I'm like, there, so anyway, I got to pull the information about this.

[00:43:49] Christa: So when you don't wear a bra, they naturally perk. I'm just like, so curious. about this. What an industry we've created around our breasts, right? What an industry. 

[00:43:58] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Absolutely. And you know, I like Soma has these really amazing bras that have no underwire. They have no straps to them. They're just like sports bras, but they're really super soft on your body. I'm totally against underwire. I have been almost my entire life and it's interesting, right? I don't know, but whatever you wear, it should be comfortable and it should feel, you should just never wear an underwire. 

[00:44:24] Christa: Yeah. One thing I will say here is that. You may listen to this episode and maybe it applies to you in some way directly, maybe it indirectly applies to you, but I think there's just different times and phases of our life where we're ready to hear.

[00:44:37] Christa: We're ready for a message. We're ready for a sign. And sometimes it's this sign. Sometimes like you couldn't convince me to not wear a bra before my friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was just kind of like, it was like a last straw for me. I was like, what is this crap? Like I am done. And the other idea on my team had been like no bra camp, sharing all this information about it. And I was like, wait a second. I need to see that now. I am now ready for it. So anyway, just using that, like sometimes this might be the right message that the right person needs at just the right time. 

[00:45:06] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I love that. I love that. And this isn't going to help me sell a supplement or do anything for my practice.

[00:45:13] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: This really was just my heart. wanting to be open and vulnerable because I think it's so important to have informed consent. Once you have informed consent, it's your choice for what you do. But hopefully everybody that listened to this episode has a different idea of how getting them or not getting them could affect the longevity of their wellness.

[00:45:34] Christa: Well, I do have one. I feel like I may have half asked this before, but did they not really tell you about the expiration date? around implants when you had them put in. Just curious. 

[00:45:47] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: This is what they said. Yeah, most times you get them out in 10 years, but there are people that have had them for 30 years with no problems.

[00:45:54] Christa: Ah, I see. 

[00:45:54] Christa: Interesting. 

[00:45:55] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: They told me that, two different surgeons told me that on two different occasions. Like, yeah, you probably won't have to get them out in 10 years. It'll be fine. 

[00:46:03] Christa: Interesting. Okay. I know you said you weren't talking about supplements, but tell us a little bit about neuro nutrition. 

[00:46:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So neuro nutrition is my functional medicine practice for pediatrics.

[00:46:15] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Neuro nutrients is, yeah, it's going well. It's going really well. Are you familiar with immunolins? 

[00:46:22] Christa: Oh, very. Absolutely. I've talked to the reps. I actually just got done talking to a client practitioner about this earlier. So I have a lot of feelings about immunolin and immunoglobulins and their utility in high doses and autoimmune conditions.

[00:46:36] Christa: Immunoglobulins are my favorite thing in the world. That's the all. 

[00:46:39] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, I love to hear that. Well, I've been prescribing Interragam, which is basically immunolin. So it's the bovine concentrate in, 

[00:46:47] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: There's only one person in the entire health space and in the entire world. I don't know if you know that or not, but I'm making a supplement with immunolin and what I'm doing is I'm putting inulin from chicory root and I'm putting some fiber in it. Because my one complaint about, Enterogam or high dose immunoglobulins is it can cause a little bit of constipation.

[00:47:08] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So this will help keep the bowels nice and moving along. Plus, my one... The thing about giving somebody too many prebiotic fiber, too much prebiotics, like for autism, there's something called the Nemechek protocol where you'll give super high doses of inulin to increase the beneficial flora, but then you're asked to pulse it with an antibiotic called rifaximin because you create SIBO, you create this overgrowth in the small intestines.

[00:47:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So isn't it beautiful if you put the prebiotic fiber with the immunoglobulin with it? So you're going to help increase the beneficial flora with keeping the overgrowth at bay. So I'm really excited. That's coming out in a couple of weeks and I'm working on it for 6 months. 

[00:47:53] Christa: Did you test them together?

[00:47:55] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Oh, yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I've been using them clinically together for a long time. So I think it's going to be good, but it's going good. It's going really well. Our mood support is, I can't say this and the FDA would come knocking on my door, but I'm telling you, I think it works better than SSRIs.

[00:48:15] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I think it works better than Prozac. And I prescribed Prozac. I prescribed SSRIs because sometimes that's what someone doesn't Can benefit from not all times, but our mood support is just, it's working really well and the formulations now that it's been in the marketplace for a little bit of time, it's really encouraging. I'm excited about it. 

[00:48:35] Christa: What's in it. 

[00:48:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So in mood support, you have a very high dose of a methylated B. I also put a high dose of folinic acid, which is really important for methylation, especially for people that have any antibodies or absorption issues into their brain around folate. So I don't know if you know about folate receptor antibodies, but sometimes based on autoimmunity and especially in development of children, you can create antibodies that are either binding or blocking getting into the cerebral spinal fluid.

[00:49:11] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: The work around this falenic acid, and we've shown that maternal antibodies to these foliates can be present preconception and after birth. And we've also shown that these antibodies can be one of the causative factors of autism. So in order to bypass it, it's not methylfolate, it's a falenic acid. 

[00:49:31] Christa: My friend who has a prenatal talks about this all the time.

[00:49:36] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: It's like the forgotten form of folate. 

[00:49:38] Christa: Well, it's confusing. 

[00:49:40] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Yeah. Well, it's not folic acid. So let's be really clear. It's not folic. It's felinic. So yeah, it has felinic. It has a very high dose of the methylated B. It has 5 hydroxy tryptophan, which is a precursor of serotonin. And then it has crocus sativus in it.

[00:49:57] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So saffron extract which is a natural SSRI. 

[00:50:01] Christa: It's the second time I've heard of saffron extract in the last two weeks. And before that it was never on my radar at all. So I may have looked at the product label and glossed over it because I didn't even think about it. So I saw it recently in a TMS support, I think, or something like that.

[00:50:16] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: it's really, it's known for mood more than anything. It's also been shown to improve attention. It's also been shown to decrease, leaky brain or help with blood brain permeability. It's very well tolerated. and that just in the combination and synergy with the other ingredients, and I put a touch of zinc in it.

[00:50:37] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Cause a lot of people with attention and mood disorders are low in zinc. It's been really, really good. I feel really grateful for how well that product has been working. So thank you for asking about neuro nutrients. 

[00:50:48] Christa: Speaking of, I bet there's not many sources for getting saffron extract either.

[00:50:54] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: I bet your friends that own the supplement companies, had to work really hard on finding the right type of extract from the right manufacturer and it is the most expensive ingredient in the blend for sure. But it's effective. It's effective. And what's interesting about it is, you know, if I were going to prescribe Prozac, nobody really sees an effect after three to four weeks, right?

[00:51:16] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: You got to be on it about three to four weeks. It's just really the same thing with mood support. You've got to be on it three to four weeks, but around that time, you really start to notice the reduction in anxiety, support with depression. 

[00:51:28] Christa: It just must be what happens in the brain with everything. I feel like absolutely every intervention needs like two to four weeks to work the end.

[00:51:35] Christa: Like that is what I see all the time. It's like, it takes about that long. Then you can start to see a change. Like let's just take a little bit of a trickle effect where you can really see the differences for everything. 

[00:51:44] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: That's right. That's right. Unless you're prescribing a stimulant or a benzo, and then, yes, if you want to go down the pharmaceutical route, you can see your kid change in an hour after a stimulant.

[00:51:55] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Not that I'm trying to villainize stimulants, but, there's very little naturally, if you really want to change like the underlying imbalance of the human, that's overnight. Your body needs time to hit that homeostatic mechanism and rebalance in a different way. 

[00:52:11] Christa: Right. Well, I feel like we could have talked for another hour about other topics, so maybe another time. Dr. Emily, where can people find you online? 

[00:52:19] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: So you can find me at neuro nutrients, com and you can find me at neuro nutrition associates. com. And thank you for having me on again. I really hope like my heart's desire is this helps. Even just one woman, make the right decision for themselves.

[00:52:36] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: And I just enjoy our banter and our back and forth. And I think you're doing a really good job putting out important information. 

[00:52:44] Christa: Well, thank you. I feel actually really strongly on my heart to share these stories of success that can be such a ripple effect. I have several more kind of in the can related to this, because there are some crazy things that happen to people and there's just not enough that's talked about.

[00:52:59] Christa: So how else are people supposed to learn about it? Thank you for coming on today. 

[00:53:03] Dr. Emily Gutierrez: Well, thank you for having me.

[00:53:05] Christa: Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission to help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story. Just go to review this podcast. com/less stressed life. That's review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life.

[00:53:27] Christa: And you'll be taken directly to a page where you can insert your review and hit post.